Beyond The Horizon (6 page)

Shannon flushed. A few weeks ago that might have been true, but as the days slid by she had come to regard Blade as a man, not as a half-breed Sioux.

“Is it true, Shannon? Do you think of me as less than human?” His voice was soft and low and utterly beguiling, turning Shannon’s legs to water. She couldn’t have spoken had she known what to say.

He was so close that she could smell his musky masculine odor, feel the tenseness in his body. With rising panic she studied the shape of his lips as they hovered dangerously close to hers, mesmerized by their rich, full contours. Vividly she recalled their softness, the unique taste when his tongue explored her mouth.

“Shannon.” Her name was a groan on his lips, softly uttered, barely heard, swept away on the warm summer breeze.

Without realizing exactly how it happened, their lips meshed, clinging, tasting. A shudder passed through Blade as his tongue outlined the generous contours of her lips, lingering at their moist corners, savoring their sweetness. He knew he had no business kissing Shannon, it could only lead to problems for both of them. But a compelling force inside him blanked out all reason and bid him take this small pleasure and savor it. Seeking a deeper intimacy, he meshed their bodies, his desire rising between them like a hot brand. Blade’s strangled moan seemed to bring a semblance of order to Shannon’s scrambled wits as she came abruptly to her senses.

What was she thinking, to allow a man she hardly knew such liberties? His mouth was demanding things she knew nothing about while his hands searched her body with practiced expertise. How many other women had he seduced so effortlessly with his male magnetism? she wondered. How had a half-breed acquired such sophisticated talents? And what was she doing in his arms, responding to him with an eagerness that shocked her?

“Don’t,” Shannon gasped. She was shaking from head to toe as she pushed herself from Blade’s arms.

My God! Blade thought, nearly as shaken as Shannon. If he continued like this he’d be bedding her on the hard ground in another moment. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he taunted. It took considerable effort to make his voice deliberately cruel and cynical.

“Are you trying to humiliate me?” Shannon struggled for breath, his cruel words fueling her anger.

“Isn’t this why you came out here?” Blade replied with sly inuendo. “Does a half-breed kiss any differently than a white man? Did you pick me to experiment on because I’m only half-tame and the thought excited you?”

Shannon sucked her breath in sharply. Then she bombarded him with her Irish temper. “You conceited jackass! I don’t understand you. One minute you’re kissing me and the next you’re accusing me of despicable things. But why should I expect gentle treatment from a half-civilized savage? You may have fooled some people on this wagon train, but you don’t fool me!”

Abruptly she turned and stalked away, leaving Blade with a bad taste in his mouth. It was a helluva long way to Fort Laramie and Shannon Branigan wasn’t going to make the trip an easy one!

The wagon train lingered another day on the bank of the Big Blue then crossed with relative ease, since the water was down. The oozy bottom looked threatening to Shannon but Blade seemed to know exactly where to cross.

Beyond the crossing the trail ran up into Nebraska to meet the Platte River, which emigrants described as bad to ford, destitute offish, too dirty to bathe in, and too thick to drink.

There were many Indian sightings now, mostly Pawnee who had to be watched carefully, for they stole horses and cattle and pilfered food indiscriminately. The emigrants crossed trails of Pawnee leading from permanent winter villages to hunting grounds to the south. Blade appeared unconcerned over these sightings, which eased the emigrants’ minds considerably.

The journey was tedious now, as they passed up the middle of a long, narrow sandy plain reaching like an outstretched belt nearly to the Rocky Mountains. Wood was practically nonexistent and the trail became littered with stoves, which were of no further use and too cumbersome to be of value. Following behind the wagons, the women and children now collected buffalo chips for fuel. They burned with surprisingly little smoke or odor, but it was an unending chore. As far as the eye could see, women and children carrying baskets or using their aprons bent to the task of picking up buffalo chips from the ground. Shannon didn’t particularly like the job, but Callie was still recovering from childbirth and the disgusting chore fell to her.

Shannon found herself thinking of Blade on those long, hot days trekking behind the wagons. He was an enigma—a man who both attracted and repelled her. Would she ever understand the workings of his mind? Perhaps it was best if she didn’t try.

Sweat trickled from beneath Shannon’s sunbonnet and she whisked it off her forehead. She wrinkled her sunburned nose, the scent of her perspiration-soaked dress offensive even to her. But she took comfort from the fact that she was no different from the other women. In a day or two they would reach the Platte River, and Blade promised the women they would have the opportunity to bathe and wash clothes.

As though she’d conjured him up, Blade appeared beside her on his gray pony.

“Put your bonnet on. Do you want the prairie sun to fry your brains?”

“I just took it off for a moment,” Shannon tried to explain.

“Your face is flushed and your nose is peeling. Your skin is too delicate to be exposed to the harsh rays of the sun.”

Her skin delicate? Shannon was shocked he’d even noticed. Dutifully she clapped the bonnet on her head and tied the strings under her chin. It rankled her to think that the only time Blade spoke to her these days was to criticize. He seemed to find fault with everything she did.

“That’s better.” Without another word he spurred his horse and rode off.

What the devil had possessed him to stop and speak to Shannon? Blade asked himself, bewildered. When he saw her trudging behind the wagon, her single garment flapping about her shapely legs and her rich chestnut curls glistening in the sun, he just couldn’t help himself. Because of the heat, most of the women had shed all unnecessary female fripperies like corsets and petticoats, sometimes even gathering their skirts between their legs and tucking them in at their waists. It created more sensible walking attire and was vastly more comfortable.

It amazed Blade that Shannon could still manage to look so beautiful with her face red from the sun and her nose sprinkled with tiny brown freckles. The sight was so tempting that something compelled him to stop, to experience again the full magnetism of those incredible blue eyes. On his way back to the head of the line of wagons he deliberately stopped beside the Wilson rig to flirt with Nancy, hoping her teasing would divert his thoughts from Shannon.

Shannon couldn’t help but notice where Blade stopped, or how long he lingered, flirting with that Wilson hussy. That it should even matter shocked her. Blade had avoided her like poison these past few days and that was just fine with her. The part of him that was Indian made her mistrust him—yet his blatant masculinity transcended all notions of red or white. He was a man. Beautifully, incredibly male. But so damn arrogant she wanted to lash out at him every time she saw him. Was it any wonder Nancy Wilson found him so intriguing?

Clive Bailey watched the exchange between Shannon and Blade, a satisfied smirk lifting the corners of his mouth. Until now duties kept him from pursuing Shannon. But since they had adapted to a daily routine, he had more time to indulge his fantasies where Shannon Branigan was concerned. She had struck his fancy from the moment they met and he hadn’t given up his dream of possessing her. At first Clive had thought Shannon was attracted to Blade, but with each passing day it became more apparent that they couldn’t stand one another. Shannon was too much of a lady to allow a half-breed to sweet-talk her. A man like Blade deserved sluts like Nancy Wilson who spread their legs for anything in pants. Clive even had a taste of her himself a few days ago when she sneaked away to meet him in the middle of the night. But that hadn’t slaked his lust for Shannon Branigan—not by a long shot.

A few days later they came upon the Platte River after traveling through two lines of hills flanking a narrow valley at a distance of a mile or two on the right and left. The level monotony of the plain was unbroken as far as the eye could see. The Platte ran through the valleys in a thin sheet of rapid, turbid water, half a mile wide and barely two feet deep. Its low banks, for the most part without bush or tree, were composed of loose sand. Only the islands sported cottonwood or willow trees, something Shannon thought most curious.

They followed the Platte for some distance. Because it was so late in the year, the river was extremely shallow. The bed was quicksand that sucked at boats and wagon wheels. It could not be ferried and was too dangerous to ford. For a distance of three miles on both sides of the Platte, the land rose in sandstone cliffs that grew higher and more broken as the trail moved west.

Shannon was amazed at the prairie wildlife—antelope, deer, coyotes, grizzlies, and black bears, buffalo, and prairie dogs. Prairie dog villages sometimes covered five hundred acres. Worst of all were the hordes of mosquitoes and gnats. Buffalo weren’t as plentiful as they once were but they could be a nuisance. Sometimes potable stream water turned dark and redolent as herds wandered through it. At other times, emigrants’ oxen and cows might stray off with the buffalo herd, never to be seen again.

Trouble with Indians was rare along this stretch, for the Platte valley lay in a kind of no man’s land between the Pawnees to the north and the Cheyenne to the south. Though their meetings with Indians were peaceable affairs in which the tribesmen traded buffalo meat for tobacco, ironware, and the travelers’ worn-out clothing. Blade insisted the wagons be drawn up into a corral at every campsite. This also served the practical purpose of enclosing some of the livestock overnight so they could graze. The corral was formed by interlocking wagons, with the tongue of one extending under the wagonbed of the other.

It was during the long tedious trek along the Platte that Clive Bailey began actively pursuing Shannon, much to Blade’s consternation.

Shannon hugged little Johnny Blade Johnson to her breast, thinking how much she missed her own closeknit family. The little boy was precious to her, and she would miss him terribly when they parted. Callie’s strength had slowly returned, and fortunately her milk was plentiful enough to keep her baby well fed and happy. As its youngest member, he soon became the darling of the wagon train.

Clive Bailey took to stopping by frequently to visit the baby, but the premise did not fool Shannon. She did her best to discourage Clive, but he remained insensitive to Shannon’s coolness. When an impromptu dance was announced for their Sunday night entertainment, Clive plotted to get Shannon alone.

Blade rarely attended these festivities, nor was he invited. He usually stood on the sidelines to watch and listen, recalling with fondness some of the festive balls he had attended before and after the war. He had never lacked for partners then. But out here on the Western frontier, he was a misfit, a man neither white nor red, living on the fringes of society. Occasionally Nancy Wilson or one of the other young ladies insisted on a dance, but he usually declined, unwilling to flaunt custom or anger parents.

The dark, mysterious pools of Blade’s eyes followed Shannon’s lithe figure as she flitted from one man’s arms to another’s. His body reacted spontaneously to the memory of how she felt in his arms, all soft and warm and vibrantly female.

Spinning to the music of the fiddler, Shannon suddenly found herself dancing with Clive Bailey. She still hadn’t forgiven him for behaving so despicably toward her and the smile faded from her lips.

“I’ve not had the opportunity to properly apologize for acting like a fool, Shannon,” Clive said. His obsequious smile did little to ingratiate him with Shannon. “I meant no disrespect. I don’t know what got into me. Can you ever forgive me?”

“It is over and done with,” Shannon said with cool disdain. “I don’t wish to speak of it. Perhaps my traveling alone gave you a false impression of me.”

“If we can start over again, I promise to behave like a perfect gentleman.”

Shannon doubted Clive Bailey’s sincerity, but her generous nature prompted her to give a grudging consent. A sly smile curved Bailey’s thin lips as he whirled Shannon around the circle of dancers.

Blade’s eyes narrowed dangerously as he noted Clive’s preoccupation with Shannon. Though he hated to leave Shannon in Bailey’s clutches, Blade slipped stealthily into the shadows, melting like a wraith into the darkness. There were still several wagons he hadn’t searched for hidden weapons and he couldn’t have asked for a better time than the present to do it. The impromptu revelry had drawn everyone to the music and dancers. With the stealth of a cat Blade slipped into a wagon belonging to Fred Hankins and his family. Fred was a loud-mouthed braggart who abused his family shamefully. But no matter how badly Blade wanted to involve the man in gun smuggling, he found nothing to suggest his guilt.

He chose another wagon in the circle and again came away without a shred of incriminating evidence. Perhaps Washington was mistaken and the guns were already on their way to Fort Laramie concealed on another wagon train. The next wagon in line belonged to Clive Bailey, and as usual his driver, a big Swede named Olson, lounged nearby. Blade cursed his rotten luck. Time and again Blade had been prevented from searching Bailey’s wagon because of Olson’s annoying habit of spending his leisure hours leaning against the rear wheel whittling on a piece of wood. Somehow, Blade reflected grimly, he’d have to devise a way to get Olson away from Bailey’s wagon long enough for him to inspect it.